Archive for April, 2013

Develop and reinforce these five habits of success. When you do, you will not have to make new decisions every morning. You instinctively know what you are going to do and how you are going to do it!

1. The habit of POSITIVE THINKING!
Successful people have simply formed the habit of doing what failures do not like to do and will not do: they think positively! They have the habit of expecting to win, the habit of planning to win, the habit of working to win . . . and they win!

2. The habit of PROSPECTING!
Develop this habit and you will have prospects everywhere and you will have an endless supply of Class–A leads.

3. The habit of CALLING ON PEOPLE!
This makes selling fun and exciting — and fruitful!

4. The habit of SELLING!
Use a system or sales presentation. Follow it to a “T”! It will make you a skilled communicator, a person who speaks with emotion and conviction.

5. The habit of WORKING!
Work is a privilege! Work is a joy! It is one of the most exciting things you can do. When you get results, it pumps your adrenalin, gives you more energy, and multiplies more results!

How do you acquire these habits? You simply decide that the opportunity of presenting is a service is worth doing!

Determine ahead of time the personal goals you can achieve for success in this business!

What do you do when that big project, contract, or opportunity you’ve been hoping for, even counting on doesn’t come through? Do you hang back to lick your wounds, feeling too shy or afraid to move forward confidently?

Sometimes we triumph over great odds to achieve our goals, and sometimes “fate” intervenes to give us tremendous failure. Persistence is the ability to keep moving forward in the wake of failure, in the midst of intense fear or fatigue, or even after reaching the summit of a long sought-after peak.

Persistence says, “when I have failed, I will use my remaining strength to take one step forward.” Persistence calls on you to ask for a referral from the client who didn’t give you the big contract. Persistence asks you to “strive, to seek, to find, and never to yield.” And, persistence invites you to do as Michael Jordan…who once said:

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot… and I missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is precisely… why I succeed”

Many people think biography is destiny, the future. There is a mindset that we are our past. That the past equals the future. It does if you live there. But most know that decision is the ultimate power.

There is nothing wrong with knowing and appreciating history. It’s a great way to not repeat something that deserves being avoided. But, when we find the emotion to change and move forward the world opens up.

1. Challenge your team to look deeper. When Henry Ford asked his engineers to design the V-8 engine, they said it couldn’t be done. He said it WILL be done—and eventually, they did it.

2. Make sure you have adequate ‘moodling’ time—time to do nothing. When we’re constantly engaged in DOING things, we don’t provide the fertile ground for ideas to take root.

3. Charge your subconscious. Give your mind something to work on while you sleep. Select a problem you want solved, a process you would like improved or a new product you would like to create before going to bed and then forget about it. Tell yourself you want at least three elegant ideas by the next day and then expect to receive them. Trust that it works.

1. Read. You can’t learn less. The more you know about something, the more you find that you DON’T know. By adding to your knowledge base, you find more and more associations. And making associations is where seemingly magical things happen.

2. Have fun. Coming up with ideas on how to do things faster, easier, with fewer resources really is fun. And things that are fun to do get done more often. Schedule regular brainstorming sessions and practice green-light thinking. Order pizza for lunch and focus on a problem or process and generate as many ideas as you can.

3. Get around people in different industries. By stepping out of your familiar territory, you open the door to new and different viewpoints you can use to your advantage.

1. Live in the possibility. Know that every problem has many possible solutions. Stand in the belief that you and your team can find a better way to do anything you put your minds to. Practice CANI—Constant and Never-Ending Improvement.

2. Always question what you do and why you do it. All too often tasks and projects creep into our processes that aren’t necessarily in keeping with our mission and purpose. Make sure everything you do is in alignment and produces the results intended.

3. Challenge long-held beliefs. Just because something’s always been done a certain way doesn’t mean that it’s still the best way. As Anthony D’Angelo said, ‘Just because something is tradition doesn’t make it right.’

4. Don’t accept the first solution right away. There are many possible solutions to every problem. Most people go with the first plausible one that comes up and they miss the value of thinking longer and finding more effective and elegant answers.

Find out more in my book Breakthroughs for Success (Amazon and website of book)